retreadbride

That brings up something that I could start another thread on....misleading HELP WANTED ads. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to "sales job" or "new company needs staffing, hiring for all positions" "interviews" that turned out to be a hook for MLMs.

I'm so glad to see that I'm not the only person creeped out by Landmark.

The strangest conversation I had was with some guy who put a massive series of seminars on his credit card. I had gone on 2 dates with him and it just didn't work out (but we were still friends.) When he wanted to start a "new life" they told him he had to go work out all the loose ends. So I couldn't get rid of him for two hours while he wanted to discuss a relationship that had never happened. He dredged up every single interaction we had ever had and wanted to analyze it. I nearly shot him.

He was worrying how he was going to pay for the next forum. I told him to wait and save up for it rather than go into debt. He said that his "friends" told him this was a terrible idea and that his life wouldn't improve without it. He put $2000 on his credit card so he could listen to a 4 hour talk on improving his finances. I'll say that was effective!

Months later, he was paying it off (and paying masses of interest on top of it.) I asked him if he had made all the changes he wanted to make. What would you know - while this massive fantastic seminar made him realize that his life COULD be better, he had no clue how to make actual changes in his behavior. He was still stuffed in credit card debt, in a dead-end job, no fulfilling romantic relationships, etc.

He said, "Well at least it's cheaper than therapy."

Nuh uh. He paid between $100-$200 per hour for those sessions. He had perfectly good insurance that would have charged him a $20 co-pay for a therapist who could help him set up actual behavior changes. If he had gone to a state financial or job counselor, it would have been free at his income level.

Wouldn't you know his best friend stopped talking to him when he reached his credit limit. Some of my other friends who were suckered by this "friend" said, "He wasn't bad. He dressed so well! He was so nice. He opened our eyes!" Yeah, any professional user does that. And from what they told me (when they thought I was going to drop money on this thing) it wasn't anything that I couldn't get from reading a classic self-help book.

For some reason, I have never met another person who thought Landmark was evil. (Though many people haven't heard of it.) I'm glad I've run into others who think it's shady.

It is mainly a site exposing a certain organization of pink-cadillac-driving-nutjobs, but it can be a real eye-opener about a company that most people think of as "fairly annoying, but overall harmless"

CRUD MONKEYS!!! My wife once spent roughly $200.00 to start selling this stuff because she loves some sort of lotion they sell. After spending the $200.00 and getting a huge case of crap to lug around, they inform her that she needed to buy about $18,000.00 worth of "inventory" in order to really be in business. She quickly told them where to put their inventory and now we both use St. Ives I had forgotten about that untill now!! lol!!

Once a year online friends of mine from all over the country get together and have a "convention" of sorts. It's open to anyone who has been involved in one particular website.

There's a period of time on Saturday where we all show off whacky stuff that we can do, or recite poetry or whatever. One year I showed how I could walk on my knees with my legs crossed. Whacky stuff like that.

Last year we met in Colorado and one of the website semi-regulars (He only posted occasionally in the forum, and had never been in the chat room) who happened to live in the area decided to come. The Saturday morning stuff was progressing nicely when it was his turn to get up and show off whatever he wanted to. He pulled out a bunch of knives and asked if anyone had a penny...

Yup, he used our annual internet get-together as a Cutco demonstration.

DH sold Cutco for about two weeks when we were in college. His mom bought two knives, my mom bought two knives, and that was it. He bought the sample set, because we didn't have any knives for our new apartment.

He never was brainwashed- he thought the knives were pretty good. He refused to lie to people when he demonstrated for them, so he didn't get that many opportunities, but it was okay. The knives are actually pretty good- we've had them for 10 years. I just wish you didn't have to go to a brainwashing seminar to get them.

The poster who talked about being pitched to by one of these companies while working as a waitress triggered something similar that happened when I was working at a pizza restaurant years ago. A large group from a company came in for an after-hours party and really whooped it up. One of the bosses came up to my co-worker and was telling her all about this company and trying to get her to quit the restaurant and come join his deal. It was a company called CA Design, and they sold door-to-door perfume and other little wholesale items to retailers to sell to their customers. I almost got suckered into it myself when I was in college and looking for part-time work. I answered a very vague sales help wanted ad in the paper and got an interview at an office that was very sparsely furnished with just folding chairs and tables. Yet the walls were covered with plaques celebrating the $$$ successes of this company and also photos of employees partying away at celebrations. I was interviewed by a flashy-looking young guy who was decked out in fake designer clothes and jewerly, which he was trying to pass off as real. He kept calling me 'babe' throughout the interview and was telling me how I could go into business on my own through them and how I could manage my own team of employees. Except that I would have to find this team of employees, which would mean recruiting friends and aquaintances to go out into little groups around town, hawking their goods. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. A few years later I was working at a private college and one of our students, a young single mother, got suckered by them. She actually quit school and moved to Seattle for one of their fabulous business opportunities. She was going on and on about how she was going to run her own business and wasn't it so great what she accomplished with them. I couldn't believe her naivete. I don't know what ever happened to her, but I hope they didn't burn her too badly.

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LJM

I'm so glad to see that I'm not the only person creeped out by Landmark.... And from what they told me (when they thought I was going to drop money on this thing) it wasn't anything that I couldn't get from reading a classic self-help book.

From talking to others (and a good friend of mine had several "friends" who were really into it, and constantly pressuring her to join, so she found out a lot of one-sided stuff from them, plus some investigation of her own) it seems what they do is have you delve into past issues in such a way as to manipulate you into an emotional catharsis-- and then convince you that the catharsis is some sort of life-changing breakthrough.

Produce a powerful emotional experience, and then convince the participants that it means what you want them to think it means. Since it's harder to exersize good judgment when in the throws of powerful emotion, this can be an effective technique.

Edallia

Kingsrings, your whole story sounded like it was just awful, but this part really jumped out and gave me a shudder or two! Gross!

And also unprofessional and odd, but mostly just icky. Judging from the tales on this thread, at least these pyramid schemers did things that obviously pointed out their shadiness before anyone thought they could possibly trust them.

Has anyone ever seen the movie "Go" when the cop serving as a consultant on a crime show takes two actors home for dinner with his wife. They make increasingly bizarre statements, including the husband asking one actor to sit on his bed, "Isn't this the softest comforter you've ever felt?" The actors are terrified that the cop is about either to proposition them or kill them, and it turns out the whole thing was a pitch for a direct sales company. Almost everything in the house, from the comforter to the food, to the furniture is from the company and the cop sells it, too! The cop wants to use the actors' Hollywood connections to ramp up his own operation. It's very creepy, but hilarious at the same time.

Kingsrings, your whole story sounded like it was just awful, but this part really jumped out and gave me a shudder or two! Gross!

And also unprofessional and odd, but mostly just icky. Judging from the tales on this thread, at least these pyramid schemers did things that obviously pointed out their shadiness before anyone thought they could possibly trust them.

Larrianntoo

This all reminds me of the friends who were selling the "amazing" products that incorporated magnets that were supposed to improve one's health and all the other vague, nonspecific claims that the health related scams have. We repeatedly demurred from purchasing any of these hideously overpriced items. The couple finally asked just what we had against the products. My electrical engineer husband and geeky, tremendously into research me told them that this stuff just couldn't, by the laws of physics, DO what they purported to do. They shut up about the stuff after that and were cool to us for a year or two, but we are still friends - or were until their divorce, but that is an entirely different story!